Second Excerpt from the book. See “Into a Cursed Land” on the sidebar . Walking along a river bank, Edwy and his friends Wolcenfaru and Widnoth encounter a water monster called the nicor…

“Widnoth, I think you should look behind you,” whispered Wolcenfaru. “Mangling might be closer than you think.”

A large toothy head, and long worm like neck had appeared out of the water. The neck was as long as a giraffe’s. Unfortunately, unlike a giraffe, the creature had big claws.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Wolcenfaru.

“I’ve never seen the nicor,” I confessed. “But if that isn’t a giant water monster, I don’t know what is.”

“Yep, that’s the nicor, alright,” smiled Widnoth turning round.

“Shouldn’t we run the other way or something?” suggested Wolcenfaru.

“Too late,” Widnoth replied. “It can out run us, even if we still had speed spells on. It has really fast reactions. I wouldn’t want to play a game of snap against it.”

The nicor looked at us with beady eyes. It partly scrabbled out to the river back. It back end was still in the deep pool. It was a strange creature. It looked how a fire-drake would, if it swam in water rather than flew. Parts of it looked worm like, and parts snake like. It had a particularly big mouth. It was in need of a dentist’s brace. Large sharp looking teeth pointed out at funny angles.

It pawed the ground with its claws as if it was a bull about to charge. We pressed closer to each other. Spells were ready. Wolcenfaru had managed to break off a dead branch from a birch tree to use as a wand. The nicor pawed a bit more, then snorted at us.

I was curious. If the nicor had wanted to kill us it could have done so by now. I looked down at the river bank. Its claws had cut strangely familiar marks into the mud. I stepped forward. It was trying to communicate in runes. That was the good news. The bad news was the message. It said “Give me a good reason not to eat you.”